


The Unicorns of Alindë

by Lycaenion



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Unicorns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:22:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycaenion/pseuds/Lycaenion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Concerning unicorns, certain products thereby, and, unfortunately, politics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

In the Kingdom of Alindë, there had always been a Keeper of the Unicorns. Even when it had been the Duchy of Alindë, and in the habit of being handed around to members of other royal families as a gift for every birth, wedding of state, and sometimes peace treaty, there had always been unicorns, and someone to keep them.

The position was hereditary, which meant that it was passed on to the child of the current Keeper as soon as they were able to walk and hold a shovel. Those were the two best skills a Keeper could have, and as had been famously proven by Keeper Tassilo and her Wheeled Shoveling Conveyance (now enshrined in the Royal Coat-Room up in the castle), the first one was optional. Shoveling most definitely was not.

Unicorns ate half again as much per day as the heartiest warhorse, which, according to the chirurgeons, was to fuel their magic. But whatever the magic needed it for, it had little effect on the sheer volume of material there was to shovel.

It didn’t stink much worse than a horse’s, and it glittered like jewels when the sun caught it just so, but it had to be cleaned up quickly. Ordinary bluebottles wouldn’t touch it, but it attracted unicorn-flies within minutes of being dropped. The chirurgeons said they were actually a kind of highly specialised fairy, which sounded like a charming reprieve until you had to deal with them. In swarms, the droning of their wings could send you into a sleep that lasted weeks or months, and sometimes they still tried to grant wishes.

It couldn’t be used for fertiliser, either, unless you enjoyed softly sparkling vegetables that, when eaten, made you taste music and see through time.*

Perhaps it should be noted here that Alindë’s other name was the Refuge of Unicorns, for they were found nowhere else. Legend said that they withered as the wild forests were cleared for farms and forges, but the Keepers would tell you they were just extraordinarily fussy, and didn’t like to travel.

Keepers had little patience for legends, on the whole. They tended to be pragmatic sorts, blunt of speech, not easily shaken, and stubborn as a whole team of mules. One had to be, when dealing with unicorns.

Remi was fifteen, and already shaping up to be a fine example of her profession. It was not long past noon when the noblewoman rode up to the gate, and the Keeper was working up a good healthy sweat on the day’s third go-round of the paddock. She was humming a traditional shoveling song, and therefore did not at first hear the shout.

“You there! Is this the Kingdom of Alinde?”

“Alind _ë_ ,” Remi called back. “You’re lucky old Bloody Furious King Gailamir died - forgettin’ the umlaut used to be punishable with a year’s hard labour.”

“You ought to stop shoveling while you’re speaking to me,” the lady said severely, “never mind your utter lack of respect for your betters. Were you raised in a barn?”

Remi didn’t look up, or stop what she was doing. “I was, at that, and born in one.” She motioned with a quick jerk of her head. “That one right over there, actually.”

“Enough of your cheek! I am here to see the Keeper of the Unicorns.”

“Huzzah,” said Remi, “now you have. Can I help you with anything more, m’lady?”

The lady’s face went a truly aristocratic shade of purple. “Why, you little ape, I ought to have your tongue cut out! Take me to your master the Keeper this instant, and I _may_ have you let off with a flogging!”

With a long sigh, Remi leaned her shovel against the paddock fence. “It’s true, m’lady, begging your pardon.” She tugged on the upper part of her jerkin, where an ancient, fraying patch still showed a rearing unicorn, quartered with the Royal Seal of Alindë (a unicorn rearing in the other direction). “I _am_ the Keeper of the Unicorns. They’ll tell you as much at the castle.”

“But unicorns will only suffer the touch of the purest maidens!”

“Eh,” shrugged Remi, “they relax their standards right quick when they realise you’re the one feedin’ ‘em. Just don’t kiss in front of ‘em, they _stares_.”

“But you’re a _boy_!”

“And you, madam, are importunate,” said Remi, savouring the feel of the word in her mouth and hoping she was using it correctly.  

Ignoring this, the noble lady tried, “Are you perhaps a lost princess _disguised_ as a stableboy?” She leaned perilously far from her saddle to get a better look, sounding almost desperate. “Ignorant of your true destiny, aided by your slim and barely blossomed frame, awaiting only a moment of interrupted bathing by—”

The young Keeper tried to keep her voice calm. “I’m not a boy, m’lady, and I shouldn’t think so. We’ve already got a princess. They say she’s the spittin’ image of her mum, but that’s mostly as we can’t mint no new coins, what with the dragons nesting in the Treasury.”

“Dr- _dragons?!_ ”

“Aye, well, no one had the heart to get rid of ‘em once the eggs hatched. The little ones are sweet, in a lizardy way, and it’s solved the castle’s rat problem. Would you like to come up and see ‘em?”

“Unless you mean to turn in their heads for the bounty, I most certainly would not!”

“So you’re from Pharailde, then.”

“I am the Viscountess of Wursterlinck!”

Remi pulled up her kerchief and scratched her brow. “Which is... in Pharailde?”

The Viscountess looked liable to spit. “I was told the Keeper of the Unicorns received a proper courtly education!”

“Only on my half-hour’s break, m’lady, and the tutor’s been off ill this month. We ain’t done geography yet.”

“Tch,” said the Viscountess, with what was evidently a tremendous amount of restraint, and tried to regain mastery of the conversation. In the resulting pause, her handsome gelding started trying to crop the nearby grass, sending the golden bells on his bridle tinkling in pleasant accompaniment to her shouts of, “Stop that, you dreadful beast! You don’t know where that’s _been_!”

From his placid demeanour and the splashes of white across his glossy chestnut coat, Remi guessed he was at least partially deaf, or had become very good at pretending.

“M’lady,” she ventured at last, trying not to sigh too loudly, “might I ask why you came to see me?”

“Whyever do you think? I am in dire need of a unicorn.”

Silence fell, heavy and graceless, and was only banished by the faintly musical buzzing of a unicorn-fly. Remi said, “Seventeen hells,” clapped her hands sharply together at the opportune moment, and then wiped them on her breeches, all while the Viscountess looked on in horror.

“Young... _lady_ ,” she managed, after clearing her throat several times over, “did you not hear me? I require—”

“M’lady knows the laws.” Remi did her level best not to turn it into a question. “Unicorns in whole or part can’t be bought nor sold nor bartered for, and they don’t cross the borders of Alindë save by their own will. As agreed by both our Queens,” she added, carefully watching the Viscountess’ square, flushed face.

“Who both have more pressing concerns at the moment, I daresay.” The noblewoman’s jaw had set hard enough to crack nuts against, a vision which Remi spent a few happy moments entertaining before the next words hit. “Do you really want to add to them?”

A pang of guilt and fear twisted Remi’s normally iron-clad stomach, and she fought not to turn her head and glance back up the hill towards the Palace. Surely they wouldn’t throw her out on the braying of a puffed-up foreign aristocrat? Queen Rosemonde had known her from the day she was born, but she’d exchanged exactly seven words with the Princess (“The unicorns are doing fine, Your Highness”), who intimidated her more than she wanted to admit.

And as for the Pharaildic queen... Remi didn’t need formal instruction in politics to know that staying in Valtraud’s good graces was vital. She’d merely had to grow up in Alindë and pay attention.

Faced with all that, she couldn’t do other than mumble, “No, m’lady,” and look appropriately chastened.

“Good.” The Viscountess surveyed the unicorns scattered about the paddock with a horse-market look that Remi did not like one bit. “Now, I’m certain a precocious young Keeper like yourself could easily convince one of these creatures to... go on a little adventure?”

Remi had been less than pleased by the noblewoman’s previous tone, but she hated this sudden honeyed flattery. At least the arrogance had been sincere! “What,” she snapped, “are you trying to catch a maiden?”

“Well, I _never_!”

The Keeper weathered this latest bout of goggle-eyed indignation in sullen silence. At last she took a deep breath and said, as politely as she could, “If there’s a poisoned well or stream in your lands, m’lady, you can petition the Qu– the Princess directly. And I think you know that as well as anyone. People know it all the way in Sadageres, even, _and_ it’s on the sign just inside the gates. The very big one, with ‘Laws Concernin’ Unicorns’ painted on the top?” Remi had learned to read from that sign, largely because it was still new enough to be legible and dusty old books made her sneeze, and she knew it better than any other collection of words in the kingdom.

“Air-go” – she tried out another scholarly term – “you don’t think whatever ’tis you want will be allowed, so you’re here to try an’ bully me.”

If looks could kill, the unicorns would have found themselves Keeperless in short order. Remi was horribly aware that she had gone too far. But no sooner had she begun to try and string a prayer together in her head than the Viscountess’ rage seemed to sputter out. Given that Keepers were exempt from the usual devotions, and Remi had usually treated the few sermons she was forced to attend as mid-afternoon naps, it was just as well. (As a trans woman she was eligible for the priestesshood, which had caused a brief flurry of excitement in the understaffed clergy until they’d actually talked to her about it.)

The noblewoman sighed heavily and shifted her weight in the saddle. “I suppose you think yourself extraordinarily clever?”

Remi knew better than to try and provide an answer.

“Well,” said the Viscountess, “I’d tell you to mind your manners, if it weren’t so dreadfully clear that you haven’t got any. Nevertheless, you’d do best to keep such deductions to yourself in future. Most people do not take well to being found out.” She plucked irritably at the high lace collar of her gown, giving Remi a glimpse of already reddened skin.

Silence tried to reign again, and was promptly rebuffed by one of the unicorns passing wind. The sound did little to break Remi away from her thoughts. It _seemed_ she had just been told she’d guessed correctly, albeit in a twisty condescending way that suggested she ought to be ashamed of herself.

Well. That was nothing new, at least, so far as this conversation went.

“Are any of the unicorns elderly or lame?” the Viscountess asked, back to false politeness, as though their last exchange had simply not happened. “Sick, perhaps, or otherwise endangering the health of the herd?”

“Blessing.”

“Pardon?”

“A lot of unicorns is called a blessing, not a herd or a flock or what have you. Don’t scrunch your face up so,” Remi said stubbornly, “‘twasn’t me thought it up. There’s a whole entire book of names like that, a murder of crows an’ a calamity of dragons an’ so on. I believe my tutor’s got a copy.”

“...How charmingly rustic,” was the best the Viscountess could come up with at short notice. Remi enjoyed seeing her off-balance again, even if she wasn’t entirely sure which part of her lecture had caused it.

“Rustic? Oh no, m’lady, it was writ up by nobles if I remember right. They’ve always had a lot of time to play around with words, not havin’ anything to feed or muck out or look after.”

“Speaking of playing around, you’ve not answered my question.”

Remi scowled even harder than the Viscountess just had. “The answer’s none. They don’t take sick at all, really, not unless something goes wrong with their magic. And what trouble’s being old, or having a bad leg? They don’t have to pull a plough or go to war, or be useful in any other way.”

“Everything has a use.”

“And theirs is being unicorns.”

“You Alindëlse,” ** the Viscountess huffed. “I’ll never know why you don’t just admit to worshipping the creatures. Honestly, you’re worse than the Argamites.”

“We can debate religion all you like,” Remi told her, “but I’m still not giving you a unicorn.”

The Viscountess yanked on her gelding’s reins so hard that he snorted and stamped. “I haven’t the time for this! Are there no mysels in this wretched little kingdom? I won’t believe it – not with Vrenel so nearby.”

Oh. So _that_ was why she wanted a unicorn.

 _Mysel._ There were half a dozen other names for the sickness, generally to do with sin, so far as Remi knew. Next to its proper one, “Vrenish plague” was the most common, though not even the chirurgeons knew for certain if it had begun there. It was more to do with the hard, scaly protrusions that marred a victim’s skin, like the hide of a snake or turtle from the Vrenish swamps. Remi had seen pictures, gruesomely detailed, in a book about medicine.

Few afflicted died of it directly, but, upon being reviled and cast out, no doubt wished they had. Could the touch of a unicorn’s horn really cure it? Wouldn’t everyone send their mysels to Alindë if that were true? Then again, mocking as the Viscountess might be, unicorns were sacred creatures; perhaps their magic did nothing against divine judgement.

But was someone’s life going to hinge on a ‘perhaps?’ Pharailders were a stiff-necked, unforgiving lot, swift to anger and slow to forgive. If Remi refused again, the Viscountess might very well lay the blame for this unknown mysel’s fate on her shoulders – and, by extension, on Alindë.

The Keeper had to admit that it made sense. The Viscountess was too obviously proud a woman to plead with the Princess for help, particularly as this meant gaining an audience at the Palace, and worse, being seen to do so. And if the Princess declined...

Word travelled fast in Alindë, there being so little ground for it to cover, and in any case keeping secrets was considered to be a recipe for bad luck. None of the four powers that bordered Alindë liked each other very much, and a sudden distaste for Pharailde might betoken a new arrangement with Vrenel or Malthace. The ensuing flood of rumor and jumped-to conclusions would then make everyone’s life miserable, and probably start another war for good measure.

Remi sighed. Once you got to wondering what could go wrong, the answer usually turned out to be ‘everything.’

“Who’s going to take care of the unicorns while I’m gone?” she asked, taking a step backwards; having seen the resigned slump of her shoulders, the Viscountess now looked liable to snatch her up and throw her over the horse’s back.

The noblewoman swatted this away as easily as Remi had the unicorn-fly. “Tch,” she clucked again, “isn’t there any sort of under-Keeper? What if you were taken ill?”

“Don’t take ill, m’lady, least not with nothing serious. It’s bein’ around unicorns all the time that does it.”

“Aren’t you afforded any leisure time? You’re hardly a peasant, my dear.”

Remi tried not to grit her teeth. “ ‘Fraid not, m’lady. Unicorns need constant lookin’ after, and they’re not easy with it. They don’t like change much, neither.” She drummed her fingers against the well-worn haft of her shovel. “How far is it to Vursto–”

“Wursterlinck,” growled the Viscountess. “And six days, Hruada willing, if we ride well and the roads are clear.”

“And how long will I need to be there?”

“Only a few days.” The words might as well have been carved into a stone tablet and used to bash Remi over the head, such was the force behind them.

Most people, when they lied, didn’t stare you down and positively dare you to mention it. Remi was grudgingly impressed by this. “So a little more than a fortnight in all, then,” she said, playing along in the hopes that the Viscountess would relax, or at least blink. “Well. I’ll go and talk to the Princess – _after_ I’ve finished shoveling.”

* * *

* As it turned out, quite a lot of people did. In fact, it had become so profitable that the neighbouring kingdoms were starting to complain.

** She made a considerable show of pronouncing the accent mark, but King Gailamir probably wouldn’t have been mollified. Most people in Alindë tried to avoid talking about him in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

That very same afternoon saw Remi sitting glumly in the saddle, or as glumly as she could without getting jolted off her excitable mare. Hirondelle was on loan from the royal stables, having begun life as a well-intended gift for the Princess, and had never before left the Palace grounds. She actually pranced her way over the well-trodden dirt, to the quiet dismay of the elderly unicorn doe trying to keep pace with her.

With every _clop-clop_ of hooves, another line of the conversation went round in Remi’s head.

* * *

 “ _Yes, all right,” the Princess had said, without looking up from her writing desk. “If you think it’s necessary.”_

“ _But I’m the Keeper of the Unicorns,” had been Remi’s feeble, nearly pleading reply. “I can’t just go off and–“_

_The Princess had glanced up for just a moment, surprise faintly written on her fine features. In fact, on further inspection, what it wrote was, **You’re still here?**_

“ _One presumes you would sometimes be entitled to. Would you rather someone else was sent instead?”_

_Not wanting to inflict the Viscountess on more people than strictly necessary, and suspecting this would be seen as yet another insult, Remi had hastily demurred._

_But even her last, best defense had not availed her. “But I might not be back for a fortnight. Or longer, even. What if–“_

“ _Keeper...”_

“ _Remi,” the Keeper in question had mumbled, just loudly enough that the Princess’s frown deepened._

“ _Keeper, while your office is an ancient and honorable one, it does not entirely rest on your shoulders.” The Princess’s tone had softened then, and Remi had felt all the worse for needing to be soothed like a child. “This **is** Alindë. All of us know a little of how to care for unicorns. They’ll come to no harm while you’re away. Besides which, I’ve always had the impression they can mostly look after themselves; they’re just quite willing to let us do it for them.” _

_The Princess had raised her eyebrows and smiled very faintly, offering Remi one last chance to prove her wrong. When she received no further protest, she had delivered the final blow: “I have every confidence in your abilities, Keeper Remi. You may go.”_

_And Remi had gone._

Now she glowered at the Viscountess’s back, mentally weighing the amount of vengeful nastiness she could get away with relative to the Princess’s confidence in her. _Horned Ségolène,_ she thought, _why did she have to say that?_

Hirondelle whickered joyfully to the unicorn and trotted on, oblivious to her rider’s inner turmoil.

The path to the Pharaildic border had gradually curved out of the forest and taken them alongside a river. Remi was fairly certain it was the Sarine, one of the more important ones; though compared to the mighty Serva, whose source was not far away, it was little more than a stream with ambitions. Still, the gentle, constant rush of water had begun to ease Remi’s sour mood somewhat, right up until she and the Viscountess saw the tigre.*

It had been crouched on the river bank, evidently more concerned with getting a drink than anything else, and raised its head as they drew nearer. It swiped its tongue once around its dark, dripping muzzle, showing heavy teeth that could crush bone like eggshell. Pawing the ground a little with one hoof, it regarded them with wary curiosity.

Both the horses flattened their ears and bared their teeth right back; behind them, the unicorn stamped and lowered her head. Her sickle-shaped horn had a fair chance of piercing the tigre’s hide, but the beast was full grown and taller than the Viscountess at its thickset shoulder, and Remi knew better than to think it unwieldy on its deceptively slender legs.

The Keeper found herself counting every shallow breath. Would it charge them to defend its territory, or just to get at the tempting meal they’d provided? Few other predators could take down unicorns with any kind of success, and by all accounts tigres were clever enough to know it.

Hirondelle trembled, moments from bolting, and Remi scarcely dared move enough to pat her neck. If they just stayed very, very still...

Transfixed as she was, Remi had not seen the Viscountess taking matters, quite literally, into her own hands. With slow, careful movements, the woman had taken out and loaded a small crossbow, and just as the tigre turned its head towards her, coarse mane bristling, a steel-tipped bolt took it through the eye.

The Viscountess wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Um,” said Remi, having aimed for _What?_ or _How?_ and missed. She scratched at her curly hair, feeling the sweat beading on her scalp, and stared at the tigre, which lay there unhelpfully.

“In Pharailde, women are expected to be able to defend themselves, especially women of station,” the Viscountess said primly, putting the crossbow away again. “One should never find oneself wholly powerless before an enemy.” She glanced over at Remi. “Don’t gawp so, it’s not becoming.”

Remi started, having been only half-listening. “...Becoming what?”

“Dear me, we _do_ have a lot of work ahead of us,” sighed the Viscountess, which was not in the least reassuring.

She tapped her gelding’s sides with her heels and clicked her tongue, and the odd little procession set off once more into the gathering evening.

****

“I should’ve thought we’d have tigre for supper,” Remi muttered, as acerbic as she could be through a mouthful of hard cheese. “I wouldn’t’ve just left it sitting around.”

On the other side of the little fire, the Viscountess sniffed in that particular way that suggested, contrary to even her lowest expectations, Remi had sunk to some new depth of uncouthness. “We had neither time nor supplies to properly butcher the creature, and I am told they are entirely unpalatable.”

“No one said _you_ had to eat it. The unicorn might’ve liked some.”

“I – I beg your pardon?”

“That’s a change,” Remi said under her breath, trying to hide her triumphant grin with another bite of cheese. Possessed of an odd feeling that was two parts national pride to one part gloating, she was starting to feel ever so slightly better. Oh, Pharailde might have its military and its faith**, and Valtraud might have got all the barons and lords (and, presumably, viscounts, whatever those were) to march in step and do what she said, but did she know anything about unicorns? Remi _thought_ not!

She watched the Viscountess turn to stare at the unicorn, who was dozing quietly with the horses, her white coat luminous in the firelight. To the untrained eye, only her size, her horn and her cloven hooves set her apart in the herd of three.

“Hardly amusing,” was the Viscountess’ eventual verdict.

“It don’t have to be, it’s true,” said Remi, nettled. “If I was going to play a trick on you, I’d do better than that.”

“And do unicorns prefer their meat raw or cooked?”

Remi tried not to react to the mocking tone, or at least not to squash the remainder of her meal in her fist. _“_ They'll eat anything, really, but everyone says it's better for 'em to have it bloody. Though if they're checking your food, it's polite to give 'em a bit afterwards. Oh, and fish, they like fish.”

“It must be quite a relief, having such loyal and infallible food tasters. Is it true they can draw out the poison as well?”

“Only if you don't mind your meal getting slobbery.”

The Viscountess looked as though she'd just taken a bite of tigre. “...What?”

“Well, they've got to lick it to do any good, haven't they?” Remi said, as solemnly as was possible when faced with that expression. “'Course, like as not once they find something they'll just keep going. If they clean the plate and look at you wanting more, then you were _really_ in trouble.”

It was somewhat difficult to make out, but from the way the Viscountess' nostrils flared, her complexion had taken another abrupt turn for the beetroot. “I refuse to hear any more of this twaddle!”

To her vast disappointment, Remi was starting to find this less and less amusing. “Why's it so hard to believe, m'lady? Most poisons we use come from plants, don't they? Unicorns can eat those plants, and deadly mushrooms too. † That's why a lot of the magic's in their spittle.”

“I was told it was a property of their blood,” said the Viscountess. She sounded almost cautious, probably, Remi thought, because she was expecting something even more far-fetched. “And their... excrement, of course.”

“All three are true, so whoever's been telling you things about unicorns got one right.” Remi brushed a few stray crumbs off her jerkin. “Come to that, who was it?”

The Viscountess sighed. “I suppose telling you that much won't do any harm...”

****

“Not _another_ alchemist?”

“Well, not an alchemist precisely, Your Highness. More of a chirurgeon, I believe.” The Royal Secretary spoke very carefully, as they always did around the Princess; not out of fear, but because the Princess tended to voice her thoughts on what she'd heard so far without regard for the actual end of one's sentence. More so if she suspected her time was being wasted. Of course, she was always quick to make amends once fully informed, but it made the Royal Secretary jittery.

“Seeking employment?”

“Er, again, not precisely.”

The Princess toyed with the fine quill she was holding. The diplomat who had gifted it to her had sworn up and down it was from a cinnamolgus, brought all the way from Aziliz at great peril and expense, but the Princess had later confided she was fairly certain it was just a small brown goose feather. ‡

People had been tripping over themselves to give her such gifts, of late, ever since her mother's condition had been let slip. She rather wished they wouldn't. “Then what is it?” 

“He wishes to study the unicorns, Your Highness. It's–”

“So did all the alchemists, and we're running out of places to put them. Also, might I add, of places that do not smell quite strongly of urine.”

“It's quite urgent,” said the Royal Secretary. “He's come all the way from Wursterlinck.”

 

* * *

 

 * [The animal on the far right](http://davidebonadonna.it/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/19-Entelodonts.jpg) is the tigre, which often appears in heraldry. Like a  _tiger_  (which can be found in lands to the southeast), it is large, striped, ferocious, and usually very hungry.

**Which, given the nature of the latter, was often indistinguishable from the former. Ségolène, called Sieglinde in Pharailde and there considered little more than a saint, was generally a peaceful goddess. Hruada was most emphatically  _not._

†It was generally understood by this point that mushrooms were not actually plants, but no one could agree on anything beyond that.

‡This was further borne out by the fact that, the first time she used it, it continually shed cinnamon onto the paper. All things considered it was an appalling waste, and also made her sneeze.


End file.
